ShotMature

It’s hard to know when this film starts, as it starts in a complete and utter darkness filled with complete and utter silence, broken only by DETECTIVE SANDERS, forty years old, breathing calmly. DETECTIVE SANDERS sighs.

DETECTIVE SANDERS

Jesus Christ

The sound of a FORENSIC CAMERA BULB charging and firing. The resulting flash fills the screen with white light that lingers on the screen. As the light subdues back into blackness, we see the pale, bloodied, dirt encrusted hand of a corpse for a moment, and then blackness.

DETECTIVE SANDERS

Were they a couple?

As he speaks, the FORENSIC CAMERA charges and flashes again, the white light lingers for a shorter time and we see a shoed foot, lying in grass before the blackness takes it.

OFFICER THOMAS

We think so, the male we think is a certain Aleck Jones, nineteen, last seen by friends Friday night in Swansea. The girl was with him.

As OFFICER THOMAS speaks, flash. An EXTREME CLOSEUP of ALECK’S dead glinting eye, and then darkness.

DETECTIVE SANDERS

And who is the girl?

OFFICER THOMAS

Tanya Lane sir-

The FORENSIC CAMERA charges and then fires off dozens and dozens of flashes, one after another in quick succession, showing us what feels like hundreds of photos of TANYA’S corpse, CLOSEUPS of hair, eyes, mouth, throat, all as bloody as the last, the flashes blinding us.

OFFICER THOMAS (CONT.)

-16 years old.

DETECTIVE SANDERS

Goddammit it.

Another flash, but this time it doesn’t dissolve into blackness, but into the next scene. The transition is seamless and gentle, there are no jarring or sudden sounds as the light dissolves into:

2 EXT. LAD’S VILLAGE CRIME SCENE – DAY 2

A rundown holiday camp reclaimed by nature, a once happy place that now sits abandoned, plastered in graffiti, vines and brambles spilling out of the smashed windows and gripping the crumbling brickwork. The place is now a crime scene, filled with police vehicles and forensic investigators in white plastic coveralls.

This scene, which lasts only a few seconds, is completely silent apart from the sound of the FORENSIC CAMERA, and any quiet diegetic sounds that occur.

LOW ANGLE SHOT of DETECTIVE SANDERS and OFFICER THOMAS, OFFICER THOMAS dressed in uniform, DETECTIVE SANDERS dressed in jeans and a trench coat. The pair are standing, surrounded by the sleek vehicles and the overgrown buildings, both looking grimly down at something behind our camera. Our camera is slowly pulling back the entire time.

The FORENSIC PHOTOGRAPHER, masked and dressed in a white plastic coverall, pushes in-between DETECTIVE SANDERS and OFFICER THOMAS, in order to get a picture of whatever the pair are looking at. Our camera keeps slowly pulling back as the FORENSIC PHOTOGRAPHER puts the FORENSIC CAMERA to his eye. The contorted dead hands of ALECK and TANYA’S corpses enter from the bottom of the frame, just as the FORENSIC CAMERA charges and flashes, and everything turns to white. The screen remains like this for a beat, completely and utterly silent, and then intense club music begins to slowly get louder and louder as the title fades into existence on the white screen: ‘SHOT’ written in big black capitals.

The club music continues to get louder. The title gets blacker and blacker, until the ‘ink’ seeps out of the letters and fills the screen, corrupting it and filling it with blackness once more. The music remains playing, loud and bursting with energy and life, louder and louder and seemingly undying as we cut straight to:

3 INT. THE STULTUS CLUB (FLASHBACK) 3

The club music and diegetic sounds from the last scene remain, acting as a sound bridge.

This scene contrasts with SCENE 2 in every possible way, filled with noise and fun and dancing young bodies, the strobes and flashing lights designed to shock and dazzle the mind rather than clarify evidence.

A multitude of dynamic shots are employed here, a montage of rapid TILT and ZOOM shots, all cutting into each other, changing so fast it is sickening and disorientating, the only constant entity the beat of the music.

As this goes on, each dark bloody photograph of ALECK and TANYA’s bodies flash up for the briefest of seconds, interspersed in between the shots of people dancing and laughing and vomiting, each photo flashing up so quickly the audience may think it’s a mistake on the film at first.

And then we see ALECK and TANYA, sitting with their drinks in a booth. Our camera is steady as it slowly, voyeuristically zooms in on the couple. We’re nearly halfway over to them when:

STAIGHT CUT TO:

4 EXT. LADS VILLAGE CRIME SCENE – DAY 4

Unexpectedly we’re yanked back to the present day. But the music remains, playing non-diegetically.

HIGH ANGLE MID SHOT of ALECK and TANYA’s corpses, lying in the grass, pale and begrimed and covered in blood. ALECK’s brains are splattered out behind his head, and lying not far off is a HANDGUN.

Our camera is pulling back incredibly slowly, almost unnoticeably so, just to keep it dynamic.

OFFICER THOMAS

(Off side)

Looks like they were both shot with the same gun. Looks like he shot her, and then shot himself.

DETECTIVE SANDERS

(Off side)

And where’s the motive in that?

OFFICER THOMAS

(Off side)

He was high! Probably was anyway, off his mash on Ecstasy no doubt. They’re all the same, Sanders, just this other day-

DETECTIVE SANDERS

(Off side)

So a guy shoots his girl because he’s high?

OFFICER THOMAS

(Off side)

Yeah, exactly!

DETECTIVE SANDERS

(Off side)

It’s never as simple as black and white, Thomas, and it’s never as simple as that.

STRAIGHT CUT TO:

5 INT. THE STULTUS CLUB (FLASHBACK) 5

The music continues to play uninterrupted as we resume our slow ZOOM SHOT towards ALECK and TANYA.

From what we can see, ALECK is a typical Nike wearing lad, dressed in a hoody, while TANYA seems more refined, modestly dressed for a club but still hammered.

We’re nearly three quarters of the way over to them when:

STAIGHT CUT TO:

6 EXT. LADS VILLAGE CRIME SCENE – DAY 6

The music continues to play uninterrupted.

LOW ANGLED TWO SHOT of DETECTIVE SANDERS AND OFFICER THOMAS

OFFICER THOMAS

Yes, Sanders, it is often as simple as that. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen all the time, some dumb whore is attracted to some psychopath’s bad LAD persona and then boom! Nasty shit like this turns up on your desk.

(to one of the surrounding policemen)

Bag ‘em!

DETECTIVE SANDERS

What, what?!

STRAUGHT CUT TO:

7 INT. THE STULTUS CLUB (FLASHBACK) 7

The music continues to play uninterrupted as we resume our slow ZOOM SHOT towards ALECK and TANYA.

ALECK says something. TANYA laughs wildly.

The ZOOM SHOT is spliced with CLOSE UP footage of TANYA’S dead face, beset by the blue fabric of a BODY BAG. A gloved hand zips her up forever, and then we’re back in the club.

The ZOOM SHOT is interrupted a second time by ALECK’s dead face being zipped up, and then we’re back in the club.

We’re so close to the couple now that we can see every detail, ALECK’s gleaming teeth, TANYA’S mascared eye-lashes, the way ALECK reaches forwards and tenderly strokes TANYA’s cheek. TANYA closes her eyes.

The music is loosing its intensity. It’s starting to die.

Before it finishes completely, we have time to cut back to:

8 EXT. LADS VILLAGE CRIME SCENE – EVENING 8

The music has finished, and is echoing away into silence as we see a LONG SHOT of DETECTIVE SANDERS, standing completely alone in the ‘Village’. The forensic teams and OFFICER THOMAS have long since left.

Evening bird song and the whisperings of trees stir through the air, and then:

The Goods

Filed under

Author guidance

The start of a much longer narrative I have kicking around in my head! I think even this short (around 5 minutes) sequence is enough to make an interesting, enigmatic film that I'll be recording in the coming months!

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